Claimed by the Demon Knight: Book One (6 page)

A crooked grin stretched across the smooth side of his face at the sight of Elsi. What a beautiful fucking mess she was.

Well, healing might take the little wretch a bit of time, he mused. And if he had to wait, he had to wait. After this long, what were a few more days to him, really? With a flick of one wrist, a pitch black oval portal opened silently in front of them, and with captive in hand the demon crossed into the chasm, the emptiness ahead of him inky and black. It closed with no sound.

Moments later, the only sign of the horrors that had happened there, the only thing left of Elsi Rhoads, was a blood-stained warehouse floor. And most people in the real world would unknowingly walk over it as a new work day began, ignorant of the fact that one of their protectors had fallen, and unaware of the drama that had taken place the night before.

No. Elsi Rhoads never would have guessed how quickly one demon knight with a monster grudge could just blow her day all to hell.

N
ews of a skirmish between one of the witch guardians of Colorado and a demon knight did not reach the ears of the Heavens higher ranks as it should have.

The 15th battalion's general, Ahriman, a powerful archangel, leaned forward in front of a large monitor buried in the confines of the Angel Research and Development Edict and made note of the readings. He rested his chin on platinum hands, his thin lips pulling back, expanding wide across abnormally large teeth. Heaven resembled the living world in many ways; for example, the use of technology powered by the massive amounts of spiritual energy so abundant in the Heavenly plane.

It seemed that a powerful demon had paid a visit to Boulder and quite possibly killed Elsi Rhoads. Well, it saved him the trouble of having to go out and find one himself. Ahriman is far more interested in the beast, not the human woman, anyways. Especially if it had been a knight. But they had all been destroyed. What a pity.

Regardless, he had acquired more than enough samples to satisfy his wicked interests, the ones he so conveniently justified and disguised under the guise of scientific research to his fellow archangels. And so, he allowed his creepy metallic hands to travel lightly over the control panel and erased the readings as a scratchy laugh snaked its way up from his throat and escaped through his teeth in a wheeze.

~~~

T
he minute they arrived in Hell, Tenuxhal teleported back to his quarters in the Black Citadel and discreetly positioned his unconscious captive on his large bed. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally kill her because he had been too rough. For now, anyways.

Time was an issue here. With every moment that passed in the black portal that acted as a bridge between Hell and the living world, the knight had felt life slowly slipping out of the young witches body.

He teleported away, towards the medical supply rooms in what was once the medical lab Beelzebub had built for his precious knights, and returned in minutes, hands full of bandages, antiseptics, and whatever other items he thought might be useful. It didn't take him long to acquire the supplies because he knew exactly where everything was. He had spent weeks nursing his own wounds that had been inflicted upon him during the last battle between the two opposing spiritual forces, and had familiarized himself with the supplies.

He unravelled the pile of bandages and set to work, quickly and efficiently wrapping the witches wounds, the one on her head taking priority. Tenuxhal furrowed his nose in surprise when he got to the filthy business of inspecting the wound. The skin beneath curly brown hair had been scraped clean away from the bone and laydown in a dishevel patch. He peeled the hair and skin back and cleansed away the blood beneath. He could see a few fractures in her skull radiating out from the impact point.

He studied Elsi's still face intently for a long moment, her eyes that usually sparked the knight's temper, locked away behind closed lids. He supposed he could give the woman a little credit. She probably should be dead.

~~~

T
wo goddamn days later and the witch hadn't moved, moaned or twitched even once. Nothing.

Tenuxhal felt like kicking a puppy.

This has been as much fun as scrubbing his eyes clean with salt. Having Elsi here was as good as being alone, only more annoying, because the knight was stuck here waiting, not knowing if the woman was going to wake up at all. And half afraid that if she did wake up, she would end up like a fucking vegetable. It was a real concern. Head injuries were tricky things, even for beings like them. Demon energy wasn’t enough for the kind of healing Beelzebubs former army required in their ever continuing war against Heaven. They were fast, powerful warriors, but shitty healers. Couldn’t have it both ways.

Tenuxhal growled and relinquished himself waiting once again, the only thing keeping him from killing the witch now being the promise of taking Elsi's life in a fair fight. With nothing else to entertain him, he tossed himself onto a couch, the Black Citadel had a lot of them and stared at the ceiling. After a few minutes of looking up into the gloom of the monotonous black paint, it was on every fucking wall, silver eyes glazed over and his mind began to wander.

...

Tenuxhal had never really cared for anything besides his own strength. Emotions and feelings like caring for others were of no use to anything in Hell, and most certainly not to him. In fact, they were a hindrance to survival and progression. Tenuxhal would have been further ahead if he hadn't had to share his food with his own minions as a newborn demon.

It was a very rare demon or knight that showed any real feelings of warmth. Some of them seem to develop a nurturing manner about them that just didn’t make sense, considering their species was the furthest thing from nurturing. And though the knight's grasp on the concept of love far exceeded his reach, Tenuxhal still just couldn’t understand or see the point in it.

Either way, it seemed the more development the demon, the more abilities it had to feel something similar to friendship and love. However, Tenuxhal was far more troubled by his own state of affairs regarding his prey, Elsi. The one human Beelzebub had failed to kill.

Stupid asshole.

Beelzebub pissed on him, others mocked him, and that woman just... just gave him that look! Tenuxhal felt like he had little control. His pride, prey, and meaning of existence had all been taken away. His vision was beginning to turn red. The monster inside him, the destructive rage that verged on insanity, was starting to wake up again and he had to leave, now. Elsi was at serious risk he if didn't leave.

He leapt off of the couch, stormed out of the room, and slammed shut the giant door so hard the sound echoed through the room and down the hall. He was more than halfway down the long passage when he realized that he had no idea where he was even going, until he looked at the walls on either side of him. He was headed on a well-worn route heading straight to the throne room where that smug bastard had sat high and mighty as he looked down on his army of demon knights. Beelzebub was long gone, locked away in Heaven and under strict watch, but even the ever defiant Tenuxhal had become only somewhat conditioned under the older demons rule. And for the past several months he had found himself repeating the same actions he was used to doing, the same ones he did before his fellow warriors had all perished.

He slammed his fist deep into the wall and roared in frustration. But the action did little to quell his anger, and did even less to soothe him. He would have happily given his left nut to blow away some weaker demons, even another Knight would have been great, but even that simple pleasure had been taken away.

Tenuxhal turned around and stalked down the hallway in a red rage.

~~~

I
t had been three days since the knight had procured his piece of witch real estate and Tenuxhal was beginning to realize that there has been a mistake in his thinking.

He had himself something of a mystery where Rhoads was concerned. He wanted to destroy and consume her more than anything, but that also meant exterminating the one thing he desires most. So he was just going to have to enjoy every delicious moment of their future battles and hope that he will eventually be satisfied the time Elsi reached her full potential and Tenuxhal finally ended her miserable life.

He realized that the whole "killing Elsi" thing might soon become a moot point anyway. The woman had finally moved, but she wasn't faring well. One of her wounds had become infected and she burned with fever, her brown hair, soaked with sweat, lying pasted against her forehead.

Tenuxhal had raced back to the medical labs as soon as Elsi's worsened condition had become apparent, and he practically torn the place apart, looking through different vials of healing liquids and medical materials. He grabbed several towels of various sizes and anything else he could possibly use to defeat the infection and ease the fever.

That had been hours ago. He stood over her now, listening to her breath. Elsi was dying by inches, but struggling so hard to live, to keep existing. Tenuxhal felt that too. Everything in Hell was a struggle.

In this brief moment of inner calm, even Tenuxhal respect the strength the witch possessed, and her unbreakable will to survive. Very well, then. As long as Rhoads continued to fight, Tenuxhal would continue to look after her. She wasn't dead yet.

...

Elsi was shivering violently, her breaths coming in short pained gasps. She was so cold it hurt. Her eyes were squeezed tightly together. She had cracked them open just for a second, and had no plans to ever do it again. If she did, she knew everything would start to spin, bringing nausea along for the ride.

For the one brief moment when she had half-remembered who she was, and realized where she was and just who the hell she was with, she had to fight extra hard against vomiting out of fear, and she was positive that expelling the contents from her stomach all over the place would be frowned upon. Her fevered mind was a pollution of incoherent images, but eventually she felt herself slipping back down into nothingness. It was her only way to escape Tenuxhal. She welcomed it.

~~~

T
enuxhal watches his bedridden charge - the unconscious addition to his Hell - his brows furrowed in a moment of deep contemplation.

The knight regarded himself as a man of action, and his primary concern was now in keeping the severely wounded witch alive. He vaguely noted that he wasn’t initially as annoyed as he thought he’d be. Taking care of this half-dead creature gave him something to do, something new to focus on. He shouldn’t be bothered with it, but it was a change from his routine of training alone, a substandard method when you didn’t even have a worth sparring partner to engage, or in his case, any sparring partner.

The human didn’t look so good. She was pale and feverish. Sweat had broken out in fine shimmering beads on her forehead and slicked her body. She shivered constantly, sometimes almost jerking convulsively. Her breathing was ragged, a huffing sound. Her body was working to take deep breaths, then exhaling hard as if trying to vent the heat trapped inside. The witch was really struggling. It was dawning on Tenuxhal that she might really not make it now, and there would be no epic fight, no glorious defeat. That thought truly irritated him.

The blankets weren’t helping, and he was getting sick of the goddamn pathetic sounds of the wretched thing in his bed. For a long moment, Tenuxhal just stared at Elsi, thinking. He finally released a long and tired sigh as he came to an awkward and unsatisfying decision. Fuck.

It was a good goddamn thing that there weren’t any other knights left to see this. Tenuxhal lifted the corner of the blankets back from the shivering form just long enough to slip into the bed himself. The short shock of cold air elicited a gasp and a pathetic whimper of complaint from the woman.

“Tch, shit it, Rhoads. Quit your whining. I’ve got better things to do than this, you know.”

He was sure the witch didn’t actually hear him, but as soon as he aligned himself and pressed his bare, scaly chest against Elsi’s equally naked back, he knew that she was at least semi-aware, because the woman responded by pressing hard against him, apparently reveling in the warmth from the knights body. His long hair, no longer tied in a braid, laid splayed out behind him.

“Heh.” His ears twitched.

He found the irony highly amusing; Elsi was so desperate to escape the torment of the fever, that she didn’t seem to even care, or rather, she likely didn’t even know, that she was trying to push herself harder into the chest of of a half-naked male three feet taller than her, and Tenuxhal, her sworn enemy, to boot. He laughed at the thought. Which part of that revelation would the woman find more humiliating? The knight knew that Elsi would freak out if her fever broke and Tenuxhal was still there.

Well then, this was a giant no-brainer.

He pulled the blankets up over both of their shoulders and reached one heavily muscled arm around Elsi’s side, cautious of the weight of it against her broken ribs. The difference in their height resulted in his hand coming to rest low on Elsi’s round stomach, settling on the soft space beneath her belly button. The knight noticed the way their bodies moulded comfortably together. He snorted, and then just as quickly let the thought flit away, inconsequential.

Tenuxhal closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and scrunched his nose up as Elsi twitched and her wild curly hair tickled his face. The close contact filled him with Elsi’s scent, and an odd mix of blood, feverish sweat and the faint residual smell of recently washed hair that he hadn’t noticed before. What was that strange sweet smell anyway? It was foreign but not unpleasant. Elsi shifted against him again, the sensation suddenly and unexpectedly travelling down Tenuxhals body, electric heat cresting and pooling in his groin.

"Sh-shit. Quite moving around, woman. Unless you want my dick jammed in your back all night. Tch." Tenuxhal didn't realize that he was blushing several shades of black as he reprimanded Elsi.